Thin Green Line

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 14 January 2021

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When producer/reporter Dan Taberski collected data about the long-running reality TV show Cops, he found that it depicts a distorted version of America: Where nearly all crime is associated with violence, drugs, or prostitution, and nearly every police encounter ends in arrest. There’s another reality TV show about law enforcement called North Woods Law. It follows state conservation officers employed by New Hampshire’s Fish & Game Department. But on North Woods Law, you’re more likely to see an injured loon than an honest-to-goodness arrest. If COPS presents a world more dangerous than reality, North Woods Law presents something else. But what? Featuring Jamiles Lartey, William Browne, Erika Billerbeck, Colin Woodard, Colonel Kevin Jordan, Dan Taberski, and Scott Rouleau. Sign up for the Outside/In newsletter for our biweekly reading lists and episode extras. Support Outside/In by making a donation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I want to talk about two TV shows.
0:03.0	Chances are you've heard of the first one.
0:06.0	Don't move.
0:08.0	Don't you move.
0:09.0	I've always watched cops.
0:11.0	I've always watched television's background noise, that's how I grew up.
0:15.0	And cops is great for that, because it's on like 10,000 times a day. a day. This is podcaster slash journalist Dan Tibersky who in 2019 produced
0:31.0	in 2019 produced and hosted a series called Running from Cops, all about the long-running
0:36.3	TV show that follows police officers on the job.
0:39.6	And he's exaggerating, of course, but not by as much as you'd think.
0:44.8	There are over 1,000 episodes of cops.
0:48.0	It's syndicated, and not so long ago you might legitimately see 15 sometimes 20 episodes running in a single 24 hour
0:56.0	period.
0:57.0	Like I had seen even before starting this project I estimate I've seen maybe 500 episodes of the
1:01.5	show and so I know it's really shame. seen maybe 500 episodes of the show.
1:03.0	And so, I know, it's really shameful.
1:04.9	It's shameful.
1:06.7	Because it's been on so long, cops is an unintended treasure
1:10.1	trove of data.
1:11.9	A window into how police see themselves, because they have editing power,
1:15.6	and about how policing has been presented en masse to an American audience.
1:20.4	The show is like a franchise, Dan says, as predictable as McDonald's.
	...

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